Here are glimpses of some of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

DANIEL BRANDHORST

RONALD GAMBOA

DAVID GAMBOA-BRANDHORST

Proud Adoptive Parents

Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa changed their flight plans so they could return to Los Angeles from Boston on Sept. 11 with their son, David Gamboa-Brandhorst, on United Airlines Flight 175.

Mr. Brandhorst, 41, was an accountant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles and Mr. Gamboa, 33, was the manager of a Gap store in Santa Monica. David, 3, who was named for Daniel's brother, was adopted in 1998. He had, said Donato Tramuto, the friend they had visited in Maine over the weekend, ''the spirit of Ron and the intellectual curiosity of Daniel.''

Mr. Brandhorst and Mr. Gamboa had been introduced at a party 13 years earlier. Mr. Gamboa was the lighter side of the two. ''He could make a rainy day look happy,'' Mr. Tramuto said. David Brandhorst, Daniel's brother, said ''Ron was the other side that kept Dan civil.''

In 1996, Mr. Brandhorst and Mr. Gamboa moved to Los Angeles, when Mr. Gamboa became a troubleshooting manager at the Gap and Mr. Brandhorst got on the road to his partnership at PricewaterhouseCoopers. David arrived in 1998, with Mr. Brandhorst and Mr. Gamboa there at his birth. Mr. Brandhorst, said Scott Pisani, a senior consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles, ''was very intense and focused at work.'' But with the arrival of David, ''he made a tremendous amount of time for his family,'' including taking his son to work with him.

Few people on the work side knew about Mr. Brandhorst's family. ''My brother led two lives,'' David Brandhorst said. ''A private personal life and a business life.''

Mr. Tramuto said that Mr. Brandhorst himself was ''very skeptical about what this lifestyle meant.'' But after years together with Mr. Gamboa and their success as parents, Mr. Tramuto said, ''I told him that 'you and Ron have convinced me that two men can really raise a child.' '' The proud parents, Mr. Tramuto added, had planned to adopt another child.

KEITH J. BURNS

Practical Joker With Heart

Keith J. Burns bought his future wife, Jennifer, an engagement ring with a diamond the size of a baseball. And it was worth about as much: the ring was plastic.

''Before he proposed to me, we would always joke around about the ring,'' Mrs. Burns recalled. ''So he bought this huge plastic diamond ring. It was bigger than my whole wrist.'' She didn't mind -- he had introduced her to his big thinking on their first date, which included two Broadway shows and a Rangers game on her first weekend in the city. For Mr. Burns, who worked in ticketing for Cantor Fitzgerald, there was no such thing as a small occasion.

Though he had recently made the switch from ticketing to equities, Mr. Burns, of East Rutherford, N.J., never lost his zeal for gift giving or for surprises, said his twin sister, Colleen Cooper. At 39, he was still a prankster. His young nephew, expecting an extravagant gift from his favorite uncle, instead received a bunch of balloons -- in which Mr. Burns had painstakingly hidden five $20 bills. Years ago, at a going-away party on the eve of his move to Hawaii, Mr. Burns greeted his five siblings with a bag full of freshly cut coconuts. ''He always thought big,'' said Ms. Cooper. ''It was never just ordinary.''

Case in point: the Keith Burns upgrade. ''He used to bring extra tickets to the Rangers game, and he would find a father and a son, or a father and a daughter sitting in the 400 section, the nosebleed seats,'' recalled his brother, Michael. ''And he'd say, 'Mike, I'll be right back.' '' With his tickets, Mr. Burns would bring the lucky pair down to the 100 section, where there was waiter service, the works. ''It made him happy, to do that,'' his brother said.

Oh, and of course Mrs. Burns eventually got a real ring.

EDWARD DeSIMONE III

Provider of Amusement

Edward DeSimone III always gave people a sore belly -- either from laughing too hard or from eating too much of his calorie-celebrating cooking. ''He was the sparkle in the drink,'' said his uncle, Peter Armenia.

The Cantor Fitzgerald offices would vibrate when Eddie D., the 10-Year-Guy (Mr. DeSimone was a vice president of the government bonds unit), would boom: ''How ya' doin'?'' Generous, yes; decorous, no: when Cantor Fitzgerald had a dress code, Mr. DeSimone, 36, of Middletown, N.J., wore a suit but padded around in his socks. He once pulled out a blowpipe and sent a spitball hurtling across the trading room.

Mr. DeSimone talked with eager speed. He could speak about his wife, Joanne, and children (Eddie IV and Stephanie), the Yankees, hockey tickets, where rates were headed, and recipes for risotto with shrimp -- all in a catch-up conversation of five minutes.

Fun was best when shared, he believed. A fisherman and hunter, he delighted in introducing the outdoors to his family. And at dawn on occasional Sundays, he drove a half-dozen New Jersey guys to his former Brooklyn stomping grounds. There Mr. DeSimone would teach them to shop for fresh produce, mozzarella and bread, and taste deeply of life -- as well as sausage and peppers -- at 8 in the morning.

KATHLEEN SHEARER

MICHAEL SHEARER

Together All the Way

Their dream was a house with a view. It happened by accident. Kathleen Shearer was buying a chair in Dover, N.H., while her husband, Michael Shearer, waited outside the store. He found the area charming. Once she was done, they drove around and spied some available property abutting a river. They made an offer, but were the lowest of three bidders. Yet the other offers fell through, and they got it. Afterward, Mr. Shearer would say that it was the most expensive chair he had ever bought.

They built their dream house and moved into it last April. On Sept. 10, Mr. Shearer, a great fan of lawns, finished seeding the property. The next day, they boarded Flight 175 to Los Angeles. They were going to clean out the apartment of Mrs. Shearer's father, who had entered a nursing home, and would visit one of their two daughters, Karrie Castro, who had recently given birth to their first grandchild. They expected to return to a new lawn.

Mrs. Shearer, 61, a retired doll maker, and Mr. Shearer, 63, a retired engineer, had been married 39 years, and they still held hands. In retirement, Mr. Shearer kept busy teaching computer classes and laboring on the lawn. Wherever he lived, he was known as the Lawn King. He liked to playfully invite friends and neighbors to kiss his ring in honor of his title. Most took a rain check.

He went to great lengths to ensure the beauty of his grass. One memorable day years ago, when Karrie and her sister, Mary, were on the way home from high school, they discovered their father vacuuming the lawn. He had accidentally spilled too much fertilizer on it, and to prevent grass burns, had hauled the vacuum out.

Mrs. Shearer had been working on a quilt to present to her granddaughter, Shea, now 8 months old. Mrs. Castro feared that her mother had taken the quilt with her on the plane, but it was not quite done, and was found back at their dream house. And that chair? It was there too, in the living room, facing the view.

When Louis Steven Inghilterra's colleagues at Fiduciary Trust first met him, they were impressed, and a bit intimidated. ''They said, 'He seemed so buttoned-up!' '' recalled Diane, his wife of five years. ''His reports were so precise!''

But when they got to know him, they discovered another side -- a man who had been playing guitar and bass with a rock band for 30 years, on stage and, more recently, with friends at his home, and who idolized Frank Zappa.

Mr. Inghilterra himself could not decide which of his personas to devote his heart to -- the loose-and-wild rock musician or the 45-year-old snap-tight organized treasurer of Fiduciary. ''He was torn,'' said Mrs. Inghilterra. ''He'd made it -- a kid from Brooklyn and Queens College, up there with boys from Yale and Harvard.'' His success made him proud and provided security, she said, but sometimes he talked of giving it up, of starting his own business.

Meanwhile, he collected guitars and records and took joy in 2-year-old Sam -- who, Mrs. Inghilterra said, shows every sign, too, of being precisely organized and wild and rocking. ''Sam would stand in front of the stage when Louis was playing and working his way around, watching every instrument,'' she said. ''He liked playing the drums. But when he knew it was time for Daddy to come home, he would get out all his blocks and color-code them.''

RICHARD MORGAN

'The Mayor of Con Ed'

The welders and laborers called Richard Morgan the Mayor of Con Ed. Though he was vice president of Con Ed's emergency management, his shoes were muddy from going down into manholes and basements, said Glenn Morgan, his eldest child. ''He would say: 'It's not the people with the fancy white shirts that get things done.' ''

He liked to take Glenn and his other children -- Kevin, Cathy and Colleen -- through Con Ed plants. ''He'd say: 'This is the plumbing for the city,' '' Glenn said. '' 'This guy is making sure there's enough gas for the building. If this cable were to break because of a flood, that guy would throw a switch and the stock market could open.' He told us the story of what makes the city hum.''

When one of his daughters, at college in Philadelphia, called for help with calculus, he drove from the family home in Glen Rock, N.J., with a copy of Calculus for Beginners.

After the 1993 trade center bombing, Mr. Morgan said it was a matter of when, not if, they would try again, said his wife, Patricia. On the morning of Sept. 11, he was pushing through crowds to get to the Con Ed substation on Liberty Street and was killed when the north tower collapsed. He was 66, an age when most people are retired.

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He used the newspaper to satisfy his interest in crossword puzzles and stock tables. The greeting was a necessity because scores of people at 2 World Trade Center, where Mr. Nesbitt worked as a tax auditor for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, considered him a friend.

''He'd approach somebody off the street and just strike up a conversation,'' said Bill Frederick, a longtime friend and co-worker. ''Even people calling with a wrong number, within an hour he would know their whole life story.''

From his native Trinidad to Harlem, where he had bought and refurbished two brownstones, Mr. Nesbitt, 58, was known for his wise counsel. ''He was an inspiration,'' said a friend, Sherly Abraham. ''Every time I had a problem he'd say, 'You know you can't change what's given to you, but you can change the way you deal with it.' ''

After Sept. 11, when Mr. Nesbitt's family went to his house, they discovered a Bible on his bed that was turned to the 16th Psalm.

''It begins with 'Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust,' '' said one of his brothers, Earl Nesbitt. ''Whenever you talked to him about death, he would say, 'If that's God's will, so be it.' ''

JOEL MILLER

Faith in Two Areas

He loved both the dusky mystery of religion and the unblinking logic of computers, and Joel Miller found his way between the two, working at Marsh & McLennan as a disaster-recovery technology specialist, raising a family, enjoying a weekly poker game with friends from his synagogue in Baldwin, on Long Island, and once a week joining in early-morning prayer services, taking a later train to his office in the World Trade Center. Last year he found a way to combine computers and religion, signing up for online courses offered by the Jewish Theological Seminary on topics like the value of prayer, said his wife, Marjorie.

His first wife died of cancer in the early 1990's. Five years ago he married Marjorie, who had been president of the synagogue and had been widowed. They combined their families -- three boys: Adam Miller, Maxwell Sivin and Justin Sivin -- and moved into a new house together.

''It was a blessing, to be so happy and to have that second chance,'' Mrs. Miller said. ''Every night we'd laugh and say we just can't believe it.'' Her husband, who was 55, would tell her, ''You make my heart smile.''

He did not work at the World Trade Center, was not aboard a hijacked plane and was not a rescue worker called to the scene. But Jeff L. Simpson, a 38-year-old project manager for Oracle Systems, had spent hundreds of nights and weekends volunteering with the local ambulance squad near his home in Dumfries, Va. ''He definitely was all heart,'' said his brother, Michael.

He pulled trapped adults out of wrecks and freed children stuck in railings. Once, on a Saturday morning when a neighbor's elderly friend broke her arm, Mr. Simpson heard the 911 call on his scanner and roared up on his motorcycle in time to help. ''Even when he wasn't on duty, he was always on duty,'' said his wife, Diane, recalling countless trips in the car that were sidetracked because he spotted flames or another sign that someone might be in distress.

He happened to be in New York when he heard about the trade center attack. He left the state attorney general's office at 120 Broadway, where he had been setting up a new computer system, and was last seen headed for the north tower, his wife said.

Recently his son Max, 7, and one of triplets, was watching a television program that offered a $1 million prize. ''I wouldn't take a million dollars,'' he told his mother, ''if I could have my daddy back.''

PETER CHRISTOPHER FRANK

On the Verge of Marriage

There were no exchanges of ''I do.'' No cake was cut, with a slice saved to store in the freezer for the first anniversary. And there was no dance to the couple's favorite song. The guests simply looked at photographs and talked about possibilities at a banquet hall in Caldwell, N.J., on Oct. 19.

Karen Carlucci had called a small group of friends and relatives together to memorialize a wedding that never was.

Her fianc, Peter Christopher Frank, was a vice president and financial analyst for Fred Alger & Co. on the 93rd floor of 1 World Trade Center.

''It was going to be our wedding day and I just couldn't pretend that it wasn't anything,'' Ms. Carlucci said of that October day. ''I had to do something. I think it was helpful, not just for me, but for everybody.''

Mr. Frank and Ms. Carlucci, both 29, were looking forward to buying an apartment in Greenwich Village, where they had lived in a rental for two and a half years with their 7-year-old fawn-colored boxer, Chavez.

Six-foot-two, with a slim athletic build, Mr. Frank was the consummate team player on the athletic field and in the boardroom, said his mother, Constance Frank. He was dedicated to friends and family. When doctors discovered last March that his godson, Gregory Waltman, 17, had chronic myeloid leukemia, Mr. Frank stayed by his hospital bedside, whispering words of encouragement, Mrs. Frank said. ''Greg, you can get better,'' Mr. Frank said, according to his mother. ''You can get out of this bed. Let's do it.''

BERNARD E. PATTERSON

Lover of Laughter

Bernard E. Patterson's first job interview on Wall Street, in the early 1980's, went something like this, according to his wife, Navila: ''Do you have anyone who works on the street?'' John J. Kenny, the founder of J.J Kenny, a municipal bond brokerage, asked the recent college graduate.

''What does he mean, 'Do I have anyone who works on the street?' '' Mr. Patterson said to himself, according to Mrs. Patterson. ''Apparently, Mr. Kenny saw the confusion on his face.''

''He didn't know if he should say anything,'' she said. ''He didn't know if it was the thing to do. He just ignored it.''

He got the job, but it was unclear if it was because he ignored the mismatched shoes. Mr. Patterson, known as Bernie, frequently told the story at dinner parties and at home in Oyster Bay, N.Y., to his children -- Kevin, 12; Scott, 10; and Anna, 5 -- who laughed hysterically. After working at J. J. Kenny, he helped start the firm Municipal Partners, which he and his partners sold to Cantor Fitzgerald about a year before Sept. 11, said Richard McCord, a friend.

Mr. Patterson, 46, loved a good laugh. ''Whenever my wife told me that we were going to a dinner party, I would always ask if Bernie was going to be there,'' Mr. McCord said.

She had earned her high school equivalency degree and had gone to beauty school, but her computer skills were perhaps not what they could have been. So three years ago, when Lourdes Galletti was hired to be an executive assistant to Stuart Fraser, the vice chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, she was grateful that he had taken a chance on her and vowed to do the best job she could.

Ms. Galletti grew up in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx with one brother, one sister, two half brothers and a single parent, Milagros Diaz. ''We had a rough childhood growing up without a father figure,'' said her half brother Willie Baez, 35, a city bus driver who reminisced a bit about their youth. ''But she had a very strong character, very strong-willed, very determined.''

Mr. Fraser praised his former aide at a lunch with her relatives in late September. ''Normally he never would have hired her,'' because she lacked relevant computer skills, said her brother, John Galletti, 35, a truck driver from the Bronx, ''but he liked her character.''

While at her job, Ms. Galletti, 33, sent words of encouragement or spiritual poetry by e-mail to her friends, including Millie Mateo-Baez. ''She loved her job,'' said Ms. Mateo-Baez, who was introduced to her husband by Ms. Galletti. ''That was the best thing that ever happened to her.''

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A version of this article appears in print on March 31, 2002, on Page 1001014 of the National edition with the headline: A NATION CHALLENGED: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: THE VICTIMS; A Spitball-Shooting Executive, a Frank Zappa Fan and the Lawn King. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe